THE SURVIVAL FITNESS OF MEMES IN THE INHERITANCE DIVISIONS FROM OLD BABYLONIA SIPPAR
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/2541Abstract
Today, the clay tablets chiselled by Old Babylonian scribes from the city-state of Sippar are our only evidence of the legal conventions from oral agreements between family members in the division of their inheritance. But why would the Old Babylonians, a predominantly oral culture, go to the expense of hiring a scribe? On face value, it seems understandable that the recording of the division of the inheritance was for the sake of standardisation, legibility and simplification (Yoffee 1991). However, there is more to it. In this paper, I present Dawkins’ meme theory (1976) and assert that the legal conventions of division agreements and scribal school practices in Old Babylonian Sippar are a “meme complexâ€, a group of memes that co-adapt in order to ensure their own replication (Blackmore 1999, Dawkins 1976, Dennett 1991). The question still remains: why do these memes survive? I propose that the structures of the filters of such memes — driven by simplicity — are standardisation, certainty and legibility. They promote the memes in their evolutionary algorithm of variation, selection and retention. Thus, the recording of the oral division agreement is merely a record designed to protect and carry on the division agreement’s scribal school practices and, to a lesser degree, its legal conventions.Metrics
References
Alan, L 2000. Animals imitate, too. In reply to “The power of memes†by Susan Blackmore, Scientific American 283/4:67–70.
Aunger, R 2002. The electric meme. A new theory of how we think. New York: Free Press.
Balkin, J M 1998. Cultural software. Yale University Press: New Haven.
Bauckhage, C 2011. Insights into internet memes. Proceedings of the Fifth International AAAI
Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, 17–21 July 2011, Barcelona. Association for the
Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
Blackmore, S 1998. Imitation and the definition of a meme, Journal of Memetics Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission. Available: http://www.baillement.com/texteblakemore [Accessed 02/10/2014].
Blackmore, S 1999. The meme machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blackmore, S 2000. The power of memes, Scientific American 283/4:65–66 (with three replies by Dugatkin, Boyd and Richerson and Plotkin, pages 67–73).
Boyd, R & Richerson, P 2000. Meme theory oversimplifies how culture changes. In reply to “The power of memes†by Susan Blackmore, Scientific American 283/4:70–71.
Brodie, R 1996. Virus of the mind: the new science of the meme. Seattle, Washington: Integral Press.
Chesterman, A 1997. Memes of translation: the spread of ideas in translation. Amsterdam: Johns DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.22
Benjamin Publishing.
Claassens, S J 2012. Family deceased estate division agreement from Old Babylonian Larsa, Nippur and Sippar. Volumes 1 and 2. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of South Africa.
Claassens–van Wyk, S J 2013. Old Babylonian Nippur solutions between beneficiaries in a deceased estate division agreement, Journal for Semitics 22/1:56–89.
Cohen, M E 1993. The cultic calendars of the ancient Near East. Michigan: CDL Press of University of Michigan.
Darwin, C 1859. On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: Murray. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.82303
Davison, P 2012. The language of internet memes, in Mandiberg:2012:120–136.
Dawkins, R 1976. The selfish gene. London: University Press.
_______ 1998. Unweaving the rainbow. Science, delusion and the appetite for wonder. London: Penguin Books.
_______ 1999. The extended phenotype: the long reach of the gene. Revised edition of 1982. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
_______ 2004a. The ancestor’s tale. A pilgrimage to the dawn of life. London: Phoenix Books.
_______ 2004b. The infected mind, in Menon 2004:137–172.
_______ 2006. The selfish gene. Thirteenth anniversary of 1976 edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deakin, S 2002. Evolution for our time: a theory of legal memetics, Current Legal Problems 55/1:1–42. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/clp/55.1.1
_______ 2011. Legal evolution: integrating economic and systemic approaches, Review of Law and Economics 7/3:659–683. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2202/1555-5879.1558
______ 2015a. Juridical ontology: the evolution of legal form, Historical Social Research 40:1–15.
______ 2015b. Law as evolution, evolution as social order: common law method reconsidered, in
Grundman and Thiessen 2015: 45-68. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NURSE.0000464999.40090.75
Dennett, D C 1991. Consciousness explained. London: Penguin Books.
_______ 1995. Darwin’s dangerous idea: evolution and the meanings of life. London: Penguin Books.
Ellickson, R C & Thorland, C 1995. Ancient land law: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 71/1:321–411.
Falkenstein, A 1953. Die Babylonische Schule, Saeculum 4:125–137. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7788/saeculum.1953.4.jg.125
Forster, B R 1995. Social reform in ancient Mesopotamia, in Irani and Silver 1995:165–177.
Fleishman, J 2001. Legal sanctions imposed on parents in Old Babylonian legal sources, JAOS 121/1:93–97. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/606733
Fried, M S 1999. The evolution of legal concepts: the memetic perspective, Jurimetrics 39/3:291–316.
Frymer-Kensky, T 1981. Patriarchal family relationships and Near Eastern law, BA 44/4:209–214. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3209666
Goddeeris, A 2002. Economy and society in northern Babylonia in the early Old Babylonian Period (ca. 2000–1800 BC). Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters and Departement Oosterse Studies.
Goodenough, O 2001. Cultural replication theory and law, The Gruter Institute Working Papers on Law, Economics and Evolutionary Biology 1/1, article 3. Berkeley Electronic Press.
Gordon, G 2002. Genes: A philosophical inquiry. New York: Routledge.
Gordon, N 2001. The implications of memetics for the cultural defence, Duke Law Journal 50/6:1809–1834. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1373048
Greengus, S 1995. Legal and social institutions of ancient Mesopotamia, in Sasson 1995:469–484.
Grundman, S and J Thiessen (eds.) 2015. Law in the context of disciplines. Interdisciplinary approaches in legal academia and practice. Germany: Mohr Siebek.
Harris, R 1968. Some aspects of the centralization of the realm under Hammurabi and his successors, JAOS 88:727–732. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/598118
_______ 1975. Ancient Sippar: a demographic study of an Old-Babylonian city, 1894–1595 BC. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut.
Henke, C 2007. Memetik und Recht, Huboldt Forum Recht 2:13–26.
Heylighen F 1992. Evolution, selfishness and cooperation, Journal of Ideas 2:70–76.
Hibbits, B J 1992. Coming to our senses: communication and legal expression in performance cultures, Emory LJ 41:873–960.
Hull, D L 2001. Science and selection: essays on biological evolution and the philosophy of science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Irani, K D and M Silver (eds) 1995. Social justice in the ancient world. London: Greenwood Press.
Keister, O R 1963. Commercial record-keeping in ancient Mesopotamia, The Accounting Review 38/2:371–376.
Kramer, S N 1949. Schooldays: a Sumerian composition relating to the education of a scribe, JAOS 69:199–215. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/596246
Laland, K and Brown, G 2002. Sense and nonsense. Oxford: Oxford Universiy Press.
Leemans, W F 1986. The family in the economic life of the Old Babylonian period, Oikumene 5:15–22.
Lukas, C J 1979. The scribal tablet-house in ancient Mesopotamia, Hist Educ Q 19/3:305–332. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/367648
Lynch, A 1996. Thought contagion: how belief spreads through society. The new science of memes. New York: Basic Books.
Magnetti, D L 1979. “Oath functions†and the “Oath process†in the civil and criminal law of the ancient Near East, Brooklyn Journal of International Law 5/1:1–28.
Malul, M 1988. Studies in Mesopotamian legal symbolism. Neukirchener Verlag Neukirchen-Vluyn: Verlag Butzon & Bercker Kevelaer.
Mandiberg, M (ed.) 2012. The social media reader. New York: New York Press.
Matthews, R 2003. The archaeology of Mesopotamia, theories and approaches. London: Routledge.
Matthews, V H, Levinson, B M and Frymer-Kensky, T 1998. Gender and law in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. Bath: Sheffield Academic Press.
Menon, L (ed.) 2004. A devil’s chaplain. Selected essays by Richard Dawkins. London: Phoenix Books.
Michalowski, P 2000. The life and death of the Sumerian language in comparative perspective, ASJ 22:177–202.
Michalowski, P 2006. The lives of the Sumerian language, in Sanders 2006:159–184.
Moore, F C T 2001. Scribes and texts: a test case for models of cultural transmission, The Monist (The Epidemiology of Ideas) 84/3:417–436. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/monist200184325
Moorey, P R S 1999. Ancient Mesopotamian material and industries: the archaeological evidence. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
Müller, V 1940. Types of Mesopotamian houses: Studies in Oriental archaeology III, JAOS 60/2:151–180. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/594005
Niblett, A, Posner, R A, and Shleifer, A 2010. The evolution of a legal rule, Journal of Legal Studies 39:325–358. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/652908
Oats, D 1990. Innovations in mud-brick: decorative and structural techniques in ancient Mesopotamia, WA 21/3:388–406. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1990.9980115
Oeser, E 2003. Legal philosophy as a developmental theory of law, Evolution and Constitution 37:85–118. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1502-7_3
Pearce, L E 1995. Scribes and scholars in ancient Mesopotamia, in Sasson 1995:2265–2278.
Plotkin, H 2000. People do more than imitate, in reply to “The power of memes†by Susan Blackmore, Scientific American 283/4:72–73. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1000-64
Pollock, S 1999. Ancient Mesopotamia: the Eden that never was. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Postgate, J N 1990. Archaeology and the texts – bridging the gap, ZA 80:228–240. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/zava.1990.80.1-2.228
_______ 1992. Early Mesopotamia: society and economy at the dawn of history. London: Routledge.
Potts, D T. 1997. Mesopotamian civilization: The material foundations. London: Athlone.
Powell, M 1989–90. Masse und Gewichte, Reallexikon der Assyriologie 7:457–517.
Powell, M A 1996. Money in Mesopotamia, JESHO 39/3:224–242. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/1568520962601225
Price, I M 1932. The relation of certain gods to equity and justice in early Babylonia, JAOS 52/2:174–178. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/593172
Renger, J M 1995. Institutional, communal, and individual ownership or possession of arable land in ancient Mesopotamia from the end of the fourth to the end of the firstmillennium B.C, Chi.-Kent.L.Rev. 71:269–319.
Robson, E 2001. The tablet house: a scribal school in Old Babylonian Nippur, RA 95/1:39–66. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/assy.093.0039
Roth, M T 1998. Gender and law: a case study from ancient Mesopotamia, in Matthews et al. 1998:173–184.
Roth, M T 1995. Law collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Scholars Press.
Sanders, S L (ed.) 2006. Margins of writing, origins of cultures. Chicago: University Press.
Sasson, J M (ed.) 1995. Civilizations of the ancient Near East. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Scott, J C 1998. Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Shennan, S 2002. Genes, memes and human history. London: Thames and Hudson.
Shifman, L 2013 Memes in digital culture. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9429.001.0001
Stone, E C 1982. The social role of the nadītu women in Old Babylonian Nippur, JESHO 25/1:50–70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/156852082X00076
Tanret, M 2004. The works and days: on scribal activity in Old Babylonian Sippar-Amnunum, RA 98:33–62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/assy.098.0033
Tinney, S J 1998. Texts, tablets and teaching. Scribal education in Nippur and Ur, Expedition 40/2:40–50.
Tyler, T 2011. Memetics. Memes and the science of cultural evolution. Mersenne Publishing.
Van De Mieroop, M 2007. A history of the ancient Near East ca. 3000–323 BC. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Van Wyk, S J 2013a. Old Babylonian family division agreement from a deceased estate – analysis of its practical and theoretical mechanisms, Fundamina 19/1:146–171.
_______ 2013b. Content analysis: a new approach in the study of the Old Babylonian family division
agreement in a deceased estate, Fundamina 91/2:413–440.
______ 2013c. A new translation of an Old Babylonian Sippar division agreement between brothers and a sister regarding their communally-shared inheritance, Journal for Semitics 22/2:302–342.
______ 2014a. Contractual maintenance support of a priestess-sister in three Old Babylonian Sippar division agreements, Journal for Semitics 23/1:195–236.
_______ 2014b. Lost in translation: present-day terms in the maintenance texts of the nadiÄtu from Old Babylonian Nippur, Journal for Semitics 23/2:443–483. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/3501
Veldhuis, N 1997. Elementary education at Nippur: the lists of trees and wooden objects. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Groningen.
Westbrook, R (ed.) 2003. A history of ancient Near Eastern Law. Volume One and Two. Leiden: Brill. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047402091
Wilkins, J S and Hull, D 2014. Replication and reproduction, in Zalta 2014:no pages.
Yoffee, N 2001. The Evolution of simplicity. Review of Scott’s seeing like a state, Current Anthropology 42/5:767–769. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/323822
Zalta, E N (ed.) 2014. The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Spring 2014 edition. Available: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ win2013/entries/replication/ [Accessed 2015/01/03].
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
